You are not using a standards compliant browser. Because of this you may notice minor glitches in the rendering of this page. Please upgrade to a compliant browser for optimal viewing:
FirefoxInternet Explorer 7Safari (Mac and PC)

Disgruntled Julie is a laboratory slave 6th year Ph.D. student studying pediatric cancer through biochemistry and biophysics. When she isn't in lab (never), she enjoys cooking, cleaning, crafting, and other domestic goddess type activities. When she is in lab (always), she spends her time attempting to purify seemingly non-purifiable proteins, determining the structure of unstructured proteins, fighting with the pH meter, and injecting mice with cancer. Disgruntled Julie survives by finding the humor in lab life, and rants accordingly.

My posts are presented as opinion and commentary and do not represent the views of LabSpaces Productions, LLC, my employer, or my educational institution.

I've been lurking around LabSpaces, but not posting of late. While I revived my personal blog, I just haven't had the motivation -- or material -- to write about anything science-based lately. Things are not progressing well, I feel like I can't share the problems because I'm not pseudonymous enough, and thinking about real science during my free time is just too painful right now.

But, a theme post on biggest lab mistake? That I can do!

My biggest mistake can be neatly summed up into one sentence: You cannot precipitate out proteins with ammonium persulfate.

No, that would require ammonium sulfate. Those three little letters make a really, really big difference. Moral of this story: when you have an awful migraine and are vomiting left and right, either go home and go to bed, or make someone else double check the chemical you grab off the shelf.

...and also for caring. By donating to a LabSpaces Donor's Choose campaign, you're doing just that -- showing you care.

So to sweeten the deal a bit, I'll throw in some cookies.

I don't have my own Donor's Choose campaign set up, but plenty of other LabSpace bloggers do! Head on over here to see the full list of participating bloggers and the projects they are trying to fund, and donate to one (or more than one!). Email me the receipt showing that you have donated (if you are attempting to stay anonymous, feel free to digitally erase your name), and you'll be entered for a chance to receive a batch of homemade cookies of your choice. The more donations, the more chances to win -- for every $500 total donated to the combined LabSpaces efforts, I'll draw one name. $2000 donations total? Four people get cookies, and so on and so forth.

The type of cookies are up to you (provided they can be shipped)... some of the favorites I have made include pinwheel cookies, lemon drops, my most-requested pudding chocolate chip, chocolate chip oatmeal, pumpkin spice, banana-stuffed peanut butter, triple choc . . . More

My mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice, then you sure as hell better not say anything on the internet where what you say could be traced back to you and kick you in the ass. Seeing as how I do not have a single positive thing to stay about lab right now, I have forced myself into social media exile.

Given my not-so-pseudonymous nature, I’m not willing to discuss how things have spiraled into the unfortunate Vortex of Lab Shittiness and I can’t ask for any specific guidance, so instead I’m going to pose a much broader question.

How do you motivate yourself to keep going when things have hit a new low?

It takes an absolutely Herculean amount of effort to get myself into lab everyday, and I’m pretty sure the “But Julie, you have to help kids with cancer!” line isn’t going to work much longer. So, throw it at me. Days when you’d rather wrestle a bear and swallow a scorpion than face your experiments and PI, what actually gets you into the lab?

Yesterday, LabMom discussed the problems with science and gender at a very young age when trying to enroll her daughter in science camp. Seeing as I have no children myself (nor will I anytime soon), I tend to steer clear of discussions relating to children and parenting. However, something else LabMom mentioned caught my eye.

“It is no secret that boys tend to lean towards subjects in the physical sciences, while girls tend to have more interest in the biological sciences, but I had just assumed there were be a few other girls at dinosaur camp.”

I feel like this is a topic that is coming up more and more frequently. While I used to just read about the problem with getting girls interested in science, more and more I see individuals phrasing it as a necessity to get females more interested in the physical sciences. (Note: I’m not trying to say that LabMom is doing this, but rather her post and subsequent comments made me realize how this is becoming a more common topic.)

But I have to confess… I don’t understand why this is a BAD thing. I’m not talking about situations where women are not exposed to science at the same level as men, but rather . . . More

I have quite a few animal facility related rants-in-progress that I have not yet finished writing (or rather, every time I think I do, there is more aggravation that I have to add), but today’s Daily Display of Incompetence is rather brief.

Dear Animal Facility,

Wet Paint signs are used for a reason. Namely, that reason is to warn unsuspecting individuals that, indeed, the paint is wet, and it is probably not a good idea to lean against that wall while waiting (and waiting… and waiting…) for the vet tech to show up with ointment to schmear all over 200 mouse eyeballs infected with pinkeye.

I sincerely hope you enjoy that amazing imprint of my ass left on the wall.

Running has never been my thing (I'm more of an elliptical in a nice air-conditioned gym gal), so I guess that's why I'm such an easy target in meme-tagging. I've been tagged by Dr. Becca!

If you missed her original post, the general gist is to "sum up your blogging motivation, philosophy and experience in exactly 10 words".

Grad school sucks. Incompetency everywhere. Must vent to save sanity.

P.S. While we're talking about blogging philosophy, apparently there has been some confusion out there in the Internets about my "move." To clarify, I have not actually moved, and will still be retaining my original blog, so don't delete me from your RSS readers quite yet! Over there, you will continue (uh, when I have time) to find the trials and tribulations of grad school, occasional scientific success stories, tales of being the (long-distance) wife of a doctor, recipes, photos, etc, while my home here will be more of an expansion on my standard 140-character Twitter-based science rants. Because hey, if you can't manage to post regularly on one blog, the obvious choice is . . . More

A female physician with a successful career and family once tried to explain the work-family balance to me as: "You can have it all; you just can't have it all when you want it." In other words, she went for the whole good things come to those who wait cliche -- in other words, eventually, someday, you'll retire and then you'll get the family life you craved while you were working. I tend to think of it more like "You can have your cake and eat it too, but your cake will be triple wrapped in the freezer taunting you for years before you get to take the first bite." Whatever it is that you want, it's right there waiting for you... but if you want it all, patience is key. Sure, you can jump right in and sink your teeth into the cakey goodness (assuming you like cake; I do not), but then the cake will be all gone too soon and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you should have waited. On the other hand, you can not-so-patiently wait, hold your hands over your ears while everyone else talks about how great their cake is, and then, when the time is right... unwrap that (slightly stale) cake and enjoy a life of bites.

So why has my life philosophy been reduced to pastries? Well, you see, I have my cake, and I am in the long, slow, pain . . . More

I’m Disgruntled Julie, and this is my labo-rant-ory. It’s taken me a little while to settle into my new digs here at LabSpaces, but I hope I’ll be worth the wait (maybe? anyone? maybe not). As a sixth year graduate student, I’ve been around the block enough to have witnessed some truly ridiculous things… but am still naive enough to be able to laugh it off with a humorous rant (because, let’s be honest, it’s not MY grant money on the line right now when someone else screws up).

Expect to find a little less science-in-the-news talk around here (though of course, I plan on sharing anything exciting that comes my way, either in terms of research or new techniques), and a little more discussion of life in the lab and attempts at tackling that giant hurdle in my path: what the hell do I want to do when (if?) I finally graduate?!?